Chapter 3: The Flooded Labyrinth and the Monster’s Trap
Chapter 3: The Maze of Mirrors and the Tempest Waters
The garden’s emerald light faded behind them, replaced by a cold breath of stone and the hollow echo of dripping water. Carrying the weight of the Earth Gem in her satchel, Evelyn stared ahead: the tunnel slipped downward, serpentine, until it plunged sharply into darkness so absolute she couldn’t see her outstretched hand. Her friends pressed close—a comforting presence and, judging by Griffin’s tense whiskers, slightly shivery nerves.
“Remind me why we run toward the roaring?” Mouse squeaked, ears flattened as an ominous rumble echoed from somewhere deep and ahead.
“Because if we wait, the Monster brings the roaring to us,” Griffin replied, a flicker of confidence covering the hint of dread. He nudged Evelyn’s elbow. “You’re leading. Unless you want to flip a coin?”
Evelyn sucked in a breath, forced a grin, and stepped forward. In the next instant, the floor gave way—her stomach leaped as the ground vanished beneath. They tumbled down a smooth stone chute, whipping through turns until—sudden and jarring—they spilled onto damp stones, half-soaked, before a yawning subterranean river.
Blue mist eddied everywhere, thick and ghostlike over a labyrinth of flickering platforms that bobbed and spun in the rushing current. The water gleamed with shifting colors: seafoam green, indigo, silver. It pulsed with unpredictable swells—sometimes gentle as a lullaby, other times snarling with sleek jaws of foam and memory. At the river’s heart, a dais of black stone emerged, wreathed in spectral light. Upon it hovered the Water Gem—liquid sapphire, swirling with inner storms.
“The Maze of Mirrors,” Mouse whispered, staring anxiously at the churning water. “The old stories say it shows things best left unsaid... some true, some untrue, all dangerous.”
Griffin swished his tail, ears alert. “Riddles and traps. Lovely. The shortest platform looks least likely to kill us—I vote we start there.”
But Evelyn felt something agitate inside, as if the river pulsed in time with her heartbeat. Each breath brought flickers of memory, hope, fear—projected onto the mist and water. Her own face, younger and panicked, peered back from a ripple; next, a stern shape formed—the faceless figure of her old alchemy master, all judgment and silence. She closed her eyes, fighting the urge to bolt.
“Careful,” Mouse squeaked. “The water’s reading us. Stay together, no matter what.” He sounded small, but his voice was steady, sharper than ever.
“Let’s move,” Griffin said, leaping onto the first stone ledge. It rocked and pitched, but held. Evelyn followed, then Mouse, clutching Griffin’s tail with both paws.
The path unfolded: some stones crumbled underfoot, others spun them in dizzy circles. The water beside them shimmered with visions—images too quick or strange to understand. Sometimes, if Evelyn glanced down, she glimpsed moments from her own future: standing triumphant atop a tower of glass; other times, she saw herself lost in a fog, calling for friends who did not answer.
On one wide, rain-slicked slab, the stones separated suddenly, cracking a ten-foot gap between Griffin and the others. The waters around him stirred, coalescing into the smoky figure of a lion-shadow—a fearsome black form with Griffin’s own golden eyes.
“Trying to scare me off, are you?” Griffin bristled, claws scraping stone, but his voice wavered. The illusion-lion prowled to the edge, staring with hunger. “I’m not that beast any longer. I choose who I am—protector, friend, not monster.”
The shadow snarled—then burst, splashing harmlessly into droplets. The platform nudged back, rejoining the path. Evelyn tried to reach for him, but another wave swept in, dousing her in freezing water.
Her own illusions rose up: her master’s disappointment, her friends laughing behind her back, even Mouse and Griffin looking away with scorn. At the center of the river, she saw herself clutching the Earth Gem—but alone.
Evelyn staggered, fighting the mirages. “It’s not real! I refuse to let the river decide who I am.” She looked at Mouse, needing an anchor. But Mouse, halfway across a spinning stone, was frozen with terror, shaken by a memory of the Earth Gem garden—a moment when he’d almost let the puzzle defeat them all.
“I let you down before,” Mouse whispered, ears drooping. “What if my mind fails now?”
Griffin, balancing nearby, growled. “You’re the cleverest mind here! If we doubt, we sink. We trust each other, even if we stumble.”
Evelyn saw the truth: the river wasn’t just showing their memories, but feeding on their fears, forcing illusions to split them apart. She gritted her teeth. “We’re stronger together! I can shut it out. Mouse—look for a pattern!”
He blinked, ears flickering. “The platforms—they follow the currents. If we map the whirlpool’s flow, we can predict which will move and when!” Hands trembling, Mouse fished a charcoal stub from his waistcoat, scribbling feverishly on the slick stone and drawing hasty lines across the gaps. “The next two will align if we jump on three... two... now!”
They leaped, Griffin in front, Evelyn clutching Mouse. For a slippery, terrifying moment, the stone spun out—a whirlpool yawned below—then steadied.
Suddenly, the mist darkened. A thunderous roar shuddered across the water: the Monster.
It loomed from the far shore, hunched and enormous, claws sinking into the rock as it blocked the river’s mouth. Its red eyes glinted hungrily—a cleverness Evelyn hadn’t seen before.
“So close—so proud. But cleverness isn’t everything,” the Monster hissed, voice like boulders cracking. With impossible speed, it flung itself onto the nearest platform, claws tearing into the bank. The platforms began to buckle, the waters roiling into spirals of dread and memory. It slammed a massive paw into the current, damming the flow, while the other paw conjured a maelstrom—tiny figures of their friends and fears twisted in the mist.
Griffin leapt to shield Mouse as a wave lifted the stone beneath him up, and nearly tossed Mouse into the water. “Hold on!”
Evelyn, fumbling in her satchel, yanked out a half-finished potion—a dark swirl sealed in frost-splotched glass. She’d meant for it to freeze dew for potion work, but maybe, just maybe... “If this goes wrong...” She smashed the vial at the edge of the next gap.
Time slowed. A fan of blue frost streaked from the broken glass, curling over the water. The breath of magic hung for a heartbeat, then crystallized—a bridge of glass and ice, fragile but solid enough to chance.
“This is wild—brilliant, but wild,” Mouse blurted, but grabbed for Evelyn’s hand all the same as Griffin bunched his muscles, lowering himself for Mouse to clamber up again.
They ran. The Monster lumbered closer, slashing at the bridge, but the team leapt to the other side. Behind them, cracks spiderwebbed through the ice.
As they neared the dais, the mists thickened, swirling with half-seen faces and future echoes—Evelyn as a master alchemist, Mouse in a council of sages, Griffin far larger and crowned in gold. Tempting, terrifying, impossible to trust.
The Water Gem hovered, spinning rapidly above the altar—each rotation gathering whorls of memory and illusion. To reach it, they would have to jump from platform to platform, each stone shifting at random, water rising dangerously with every doubt.
Mouse, shaking, stared at his map. “The platforms are mirrors, locked to our focus and intent. If we each choose our hope—not fear, not doubt—they’ll align for a moment.”
Evelyn grabbed her friends. “On three! Hope together!”
“One... two... three!”
The stones slotted into place, as if commanded by their unity. Mouse darted forward, signaling with a triumphant squeak; Griffin bounded ahead, tail high. Evelyn surged last, her heart a furious drum.
Just as her fingers closed on the Water Gem—cool, impossibly smooth, charged with silent thunder—the Monster lunged, its claws mere inches away. Evelyn twisted, clutching the Gem to her chest, and rolled behind Griffin, who roared—more beast than ever, bravery and doubt tangled—and blocked the blow.
For an instant the whole chamber trembled; the platform shattered, beginning to sink. Mouse, thinking fast, tossed a pebble at a final, untested stone—and it rose, forming an escape path. “Go!” he called.
Evelyn, Mouse, and Griffin darted across the last stones as the Monster, howling in rage, churned the waters behind them. At the very edge, it plunged a claw into the satchel Evelyn had dropped in the chaos—catching a scrap of the magic map as they fled.
As the mists dissipated, Evelyn breathed in—damp, relief, the pulse of the Water Gem now throbbing alongside Earth’s warmth in her hand. Behind them, the Monster’s voice echoed like thunder: “Next time, alchemist—what you know, I will know. What you hope, I will crush.”
But for now, the friends pressed onward, bruised and breathless, but each heart just a little lighter for having made it through the river’s illusions together. Unity, imagination, and courage had won—this time. Yet, with the Monster armed with a piece of their map, the next trial would not only be a matter of strength, but of wit against wit, hope against hunger.
Still: Evelyn grinned fiercely, her friends at her side, the Gems aglow. The adventure at the crossroads of imagination and destiny was only growing stranger—and more wonderful—by the heartbeat.